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How much are you willing to pay for a sample library going into 2024?

J

jimjazzuk

Active Member
Hey all,

I've noticed this year more than ever that lots of Black Friday sales have been extended or have reappeared as Christmas approaches. Some of the deals are more generous than usual, and I noticed on the BF thread that so many people seemed to be refraining from partaking this time around. There seems to be a cooling off in the market.

Having at one point spent thousands of $s on new samples in any given year, I'm pretty much restricting myself to around $100 max per library, and I've gotta be really blown away by any playthroughs or demos to go for it.

I was just pondering:

- How much are you willing to pay for a sample library going into 2024?

But also...

- Have we reached a point where companies will have to offer some sort of demo as people are just not willing to take the risk of spending $100s with no option of a refund?

- Will sample makers start working on cheaper, smaller projects as the market is cooling?
Click to read more...
 
Well no demos in the Kontakt Ecosystem and im sure this will stay for atleast another ten years. When i comes to spending less... i don't think so VIC is just a bubble with many people beeing that long around that they don't really want/need that much anymore and only buy if it's special or a very very good bang for the buck. Well myself i would also pay more than 100 bucks if the library is worth it but i also have a threshold and for example with Strezvos Afflatus Series (it sounds really good) but 400+ bucks for one category of instruments not a full orchestral bundle is just something i refuse to buy. If it ever drops to 250$ or both Afflatus bundeld for 500$ than i yeah i would buy it. Also bought both MA1 & MA2 as bundle for around 550$ last year so no problem with spending a little more for a good well worth product, but there is a pain limit. :) Have a nice christmas.
 
After many years of patiently building my software toolkit, often with (financial) difficulty, I've finally reached a phase where I plan to expand further mostly through affordable solutions or the free series that keep getting better and better. Honestly, even though there are some fabulous discounts lately, I still keep asking myself: "Do I really need this?" or "Do I really need all these sounds"? In most cases, the answer is negative. Frankly, I'm often overwhelmed by all these choices, and I feel more creative with having fewer options to choose from. So my long-term strategy is to buy something new only when there's no way around it. Of course, this is from my perspective.
 
Given what I got for Black Friday and my current setup, it’s going to be a real uphill battle for companies to get me to bring out my wallet. The only libraries I see myself buying are some remaining libraries from the Berlin series just so I can complete the set, or at least the Berlin mains set, and even then, it’s more of a want to have the entire set than a need.

At some point diminishing returns hits and no matter how shiny a new library is, if you already have a lot, then you’re mostly just wasting your money. On paper, it seems like having a lot of options allows you to cover a lot of ground but not only would that be expensive, there’s also paralysis choice. Even something like 8dio has a hard time moving me with their $80 bundles because it would just be a waste of space and there’s others I’d likely tap into first. Same with Spitfire Symphony. Sure it’s a killer deal but I have a working set already.

On topic, I’m more likely to bite into something Orchestral Tools simply because for the most part, I can just buy from them a la carte. If they release a shiny new woodwind library and I only want their clarinet ensemble patch, then I can just get it instead of spending hundreds for the whole set. Perhaps the max I’ll spend on a new library is $300. Anything over that needs to do something that makes my setup obsolete.
 
I don’t mind spending a lot to get something that’s really good. My problem is more the demo thing. I think it’s insane to ask many hundreds of dollars without offering some kind of demo or the possibility of a refund. I know there are reasons but at the end of the day I don’t really care what the reasons are. It’s still unfair to put all of the economic burden on the customer. Especially since most libraries I’ve bought has turned out to be undercooked and in need of updates that either take forever or don’t show up at all.

You’d think this place would be kind of a solution to this problem, getting recommendations and insight from other, preferably more experienced and skillful users. But after spending a while here on VI-C, it’s clear that people have so many different use cases and points of comparison that it’s still really hard to know who to listen to.

Some are comparing these modern libraries to their old hardware samplers from the 90s and are understandably over the moon. Other have the luxury of replacing a lot of their mock-ups with real orchestral recording and might not really care how a particular instrument sounds as long as it reaches over their arbitrary threshold of good enough. Some call an entire library unusable because of a few minor flaw in one or two instruments. Some are very particular of the “tone” but couldn’t care less about the technical aspects, and some are the total opposite.

Don’t get me wrong, I like this place and find it useful in many ways but I’ve learned to be cautious when listening to people’s recommendations regarding library purchases.

So, yeah, I don’t mind spending a lot of money for something that’s really good, but since it’s so hard to know what actually is good - for the way I intend to use these tools - I’m not buying anything major at all right now.
 
Depends on content and quality vs price, there are so many libraries available at good prices and I already have many decent libraries but one thing I can say is that I would not pay ARO module prices for what you get.
 
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Depends on what comes out.

The new ARO strings are fine but not so special that I can't make do with what I have. I don't feel the need to fill out the rest of the strings package.

If it was the end all be all strings release? I'd drop $1000+ per section without blinking.

Better yet - a completely redone SSO that I could run another ten years? Easily $25K. But now I'm just being silly.
 
It depends on the library. I don't set a limit. I don't recall spending even a full 1k on any single library before and libraries don't sell at that point anymore in the first place, so speaking practically, no library is likely to show up that's "too expensive" if it's a sound and feature set that will make my life easier. Those don't come around often though.

As for the second question, it doesn't look like things are headed in that direction. Developers will take note if the benefit of providing demos outweighed the risk, difficulty, and costs involved.
 
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I‘m sure sample developers are still making money, but I do think that the virtual instrument market has significantly cooled here within the population of this forum, much of which has been template-building for some time.

At this point, I have so many libraries to address my needs and cover my bases, that any new library above “impulse-buy” pricing (such as the surprisingly good Vivid Strings at €29 or the useful Sordina 2 at €40) needs to really solve an acute problem, at which point I’m willing to really shell out. Duality Strings was a case in point where the product made the process of layering and compressing, which I’d been doing the old fashioned way suddenly much easier and faster, so I didn’t hesitate to grab it at intro the price. Money that saves time, is well spent.

Otherwise, barring the release of revolutionary time-saving technology (like a possible Infinite Strings) the days where I spend thousands or even hundreds on new libraries are essentially over.
 
I bought a lot more this year than planned. I have been resisting the cheap small libraries. The very quickly add up to a lot of money. I would rather spend more money on a big release. With that said, all the discounts this year is just crazy. It seems like some of the developers have grown a bit large during c19 and now they have to sell a lot more at a discount to cover it all. With huge discounts it devalues how much I am willing to use on something. And the discount better be good.
The other question, with VSL I have had no problem buying without watching a lot of videos, since they have 14 days money back or demo on their products. That puts them in a position where I am more willing to just jump in.
With all the custom players out there, demos should be easy to do.
 
At this point I'm rarely wiling to pay more than $60. Lately I've been picking up a few small libraries here and there. Most new libraries don't seem groundbreaking or novel despite the marketing, and some companies have become too loose with their quality control so I don't fully trust them anymore. The very best libraries are often not affordable for hobbyists like me. When I really need an instrument, I can often get it from 8DIO for a fraction of the price of other vendors, and if not 8DIO, I can get a single instrument from OT. I'm curious to what extent 8DIO's low pricing has affected the market.

I think I would be willing to make larger purchases if I could demo the libraries. I've been on the fence about purchasing CSB for a long time because I'm concerned about the room sound. If I could test it, I could see if I can get the sound I want with my plugins.

I often demo plugins and decide to buy them, so I assume it would also be the case with sample libraries. And the option of a refund would of course entice me to make the purchase.
 
Not more than a 100€, but that is because I got everything necessary.

Theres 2 things that could catch my interest if anyone would make them. Could even make me 'desperate'.

1. Full orchestral chords library with various setups. All possible chords is various orchestral techniques. (ie. not just major, minor and 7th, but everything out there, and recorded also with different setups).

2. Ballad maker. So, an AI program that makes bases for great ballads. A bit more pop-rock-orchestral style. If done properly, this would drive me crazy - 'must have'. Bet they could suck out 499€ from me.
 
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Ill be honest with myself...(and you).

I never buy unless I get a 30% or greater discount. These days, it's more like 40% and above. I got stung when buying Cinebrass bundle for over £850 when I started off, 2 weeks later it was on huge sale, and it hit my gut.

Since that day, the rule was in place.

For a single library, it appears I'm around £500 mark (BWS), but it has to appear impressive and be something different to what I have. Only one to two purchases a year in thIs price range.

Bundles I'll consider Higher as I picked up Berlin String Series on huge sale, as when totalled the prices were around 75% off the individual RRP releases.

If old libraries increase in price, I will not touch them! I find that's just a s*** way to get more money out of people. So...yes Cinesamples won't be looked at unless on significant discount, and Spitfire has recently put up their Albion 1 Legacy from £200 to £250, while Loegria remains at £200. Again...an awful move considering it's a rerelease.

EDIT
Albion 1 Legacy has dropped back to £200.
 
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I’ve been spoiled by having an EDU discount for the past 4 years, so paying a full price or even getting a small intro discount would probably not be enough to get me onboard. A psychological thing I guess. Spending hundreds would feel awkward, especially if the ROI of the library is unclear.

But yeah, it depends on the value that the library would bring to the table, and if I need it for a project. I already have all bases covered, so it has to be something different. The same old just with better legatos aren’t gonna cut it. Unconventional stuff, instruments with a fascinating timbre, that kind of stuff might be interesting.

One thing I’m looking forward to are the Tokyo Scoring Solo Strings, if they’re released next year. The lookahead mode feels like a significant upgrade workflow-wise, so it’s interesting to see how they implement it for the solo strings. That just might be worth the investment.
 
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